…some object, substance or activity is depicted as intrinsically harmful regardless of context or actual outcome, a connection to children is invented if one does not exist, and the prohibitionists then argue that any abrogation of personal liberty (no matter how invasive) and any expansion of the police state (no matter how destructive, evil and counterproductive) is justified to stop the threat to Our Treasured Way of Life…

The primary tool used by prohibitionists to drum up support for their crusades is the Big Lie, a gigantic state-sponsored myth totally unsupported by facts which plays upon people’s primitive fears and tribalism to justify the criminalization of consensual behavior and the use of grotesque levels of state violence to suppress it. For most of the 20th century the most aggressively-promoted campaigns of prohibition were those directed against intoxicants of one kind or another; first alcohol Prohibition, then the “War on Drugs“, were used to increase the power of the state to control, spy upon, harass, brutalize, rob, cage and murder its citizens, with the full approval of the useful idiots who never understand that once a weapon is forged, there is no way to stop government from expanding its use to persecute those who supported giving it to the government in the first place.

But now, this abomination which has resulted in the deaths of many millions and the waste of several trillions is finally on the way to its long-overdue demise. The week does not pass that some retired official or politician who fervently supported the depredations speaks out against it, governments all over the world are ponderously drifting away from drug-war policies, and one would be hard-pressed to find a reputable human rights or public health authority or organization which has not yet denounced the vile insanity of destroying the lives of large segments of the population in a futile attempt to stop them from enjoying themselves in a way the “authorities” disapprove of. But most of the foes of prohibition, whether long-standing or Johnny-come-lately, are wrong in one vitally important respect: many of them declare the Drug War a “failure”. This is absolutely incorrect; prohibition can only be considered a “failure” if one accepts the rationale for it publicly promoted by politicians, that of actually stopping whatever it is the government claims it wants to stop. But that isn’t the real reason for its existence, and never has been; if it were the government would surely have learned its lesson from alcohol Prohibition, and wouldn’t have begun its drug prohibition with those substances favored by three minority groups it wished to suppress (marijuana was favored in the Hispanic community, cocaine in the black community and opiates in the Chinese community). Simply put, the Drug War exists as an excuse for expanding government power, and for no other reason.

But now, that excuse is not working any more; few well-informed older people and virtually no younger people believe the propaganda, and even those who do often recognize the ruinous costs of the suppression. Within a few years, it is very likely that drug prohibition will be scaled down dramatically or even ended entirely, and good riddance. This does not mean, however, that governments will give up the powers they have granted themselves; far from it. There are police budgets to be justified, prisons to be filled, minorities to be suppressed, populations to be terrorized, surveillance powers to be expanded and rights to be eroded, and if the Drug War no longer serves to allow those things the rulers will have to replace it with something else: that “something” is “sex trafficking”. I have often demonstrated the interchangeability of the rhetoric used to justify suppression of drugs and of prostitution, and Carol Fenton and others have pointed out that “sex trafficking” laws are usually built on “drug trafficking” laws, right down to the terms used and the penalties inflicted (such as asset seizure). Gangs which were targeted for drug-war operations are now blamed for “sex trafficking”, and the most stories in which some cop vomits out propaganda onto a passive reporter or credulous audience now contain some variation on the claim that “gangs are now switching from drug trafficking to sex trafficking, because a quantity of drugs can be sold only once while a sex slave can be sold many times.” The truth, of course, is that gangs are doing nothing of the kind; it’s just that the “authorities” are switching to a new excuse to justify their anti-gang campaigns.

In some places, the new “anti-trafficking” operations are being carried out by the same police units that are assigned to harass people for drugs; in Oklahoma, for example, the “Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs” is the entity assigned to persecute sex workers and spread the new propaganda, and they didn’t even bother to change its name. Even in states and cities with a slightly higher opinion of their citizens’ intelligence, however, the situation is the same: cops, funds, resources, policies and even laws are being gradually reassigned from inflicting violence in the name of stopping one consensual behavior to inflicting it in the name of stopping a different one. And this pattern will continue until society rids itself of the evil delusion that governments own the bodies and lives of individuals, and therefore have the right to harm or even murder them for behaving in some way those governments have arbitrarily prohibited.

In all cases it is not credible in the least that they found only one person per search. Instead it is basically certain that they found a few hundred and then very carefully selected the ones least likely to get any sympathy and least able to defend themselves. The aim is of course to prevent the average person from noticing that this is (again) a significant expansion of the surveillance-state, in the first instance with the eager help of private companies. Also note that the material they found initially is not clearly specified. “Image of a young girl” could, for example, be a harmless vacation picture or a drawing of Lisa Simpson.

Your generalisations about prohibition might work in the US but many don’t apply here.

For example, there has never been Australian ‘state sponsorship’ for alcohol prohibition but there have always been alcohol prohibitionists here (though fewer and much weakened after the example of the US ‘Noble Experiment’).

Likewise, because we never had state supported alcohol prohibition the War on Drugs was never about maintaining police budgets after it failed. Nor was it about oppressing specific minority groups (in fact cocaine was pretty much exclusively the province of a tiny economic elite here at the time it was banned). Rather the WoD downunder was largely in response to US diplomatic and propaganda pressure and many attempts to moderate it (such as government supplied heroin for junkies) have been sunk by heavy-handed US intervention.

It’s the US I’m talking about. It’s not only the world’s most devoted supporter of prohibition, but also the world’s most devoted exporter of this morally-bankrupt scheme. Many other countries would have little or no prohibition if not for US propaganda, leverage and threats.

I very much agree, the US prohibition sickness is a massive danger tho the whole world, islands of sanity non-withstanding.

Historically, for example, Cocaine and Heroine were over-the-counter medicine in Germany, until the US exercised pressure. Over-the-counter means medical-grade, dependable quality, an instruction leaflet and a low price, hence no criminality to get the money to buy it, health risks as low as they can get and general availability of accurate information. This sick prohibition mind-set and its compulsive spreading does untold damage and has zero positive effect.

There was prohibition in the ACT, mainly pushed by an american pretending to be canadian named King O’Malley. Every friday, there’d be an exodus from Canberra to Queanbeyan where alcohol was legal. It transpired that there was a bar in parliament house for the MPs and the public reaction was enough to get the stupid law overturned.

Next up – slavery in australia of pacific islanders on sugar plantations. Bet there were americans behind that, too.

Being from the ACT I’m sure you’d remember the Carnell government’s efforts to provide heroin to addicts and how the US reacted by sending Barry McCaffrey out to read the riot act to the Federal government who then invoked Federal laws to kybosh Kate and Mike’s plans.

A similar thing happened in NSW in the late 70s, early 80s when there was a wave of cross party support for government supplied heroin, culminating in then Premier-in-waiting Nick Greiner’s attempts to make it a NSW Liberal Party policy platform. The US government threatened trade sanctions if it went ahead and the Federal Libs (and Murdoch press – who had also previously been supportive) came down on Greiner like a ton of bricks. End of that initiative.

I wonder if prohibition is really about reducing freedom in general. It may be more about trying to restrict freedom for particular groups, seen as a threat to the social hierarchy. For example upwardly mobile men often can afford escorts, but can’t afford the cost of regular trips to destinations like Thailand, unlike the elites. The resenters (poorer men who can’t even afford domestic escorts added to the mix) are patronized by condescending elites, as they are no threat generally speaking. On top of that you have women, particularly white, middle class women, who feel threatened by any reduction in the “price” of sex. Many are also jealous if beautiful, sexually powerful women such as escorts and actresses, etc.

Really it seems like it mirrors the general political culture, in which the top and bottom collude to bash the middle.

On top of that you have women, particularly white, middle class women, who feel threatened by any reduction in the “price” of sex.

Gotta agree with that bit.

While authorities are always quick to exploit the War on Sex for their own purposes I think the pressure in favour of it has always come from women seeking to control their menfolk.

I sometimes wonder if the War on Drugs would ever have got off the ground if not for the interests of consumerists and industrialists to keep people chasing the chimera of happiness via that new car, new clothes, Big Pharma blockbuster or the hope of upwards social mobility. Why work your guts out for something that might possibly deliver a little temporary happiness when you can work far less for something that almost definitely will?

That would also explain why the WoD disproportionately hits minority groups. They know social mobility is unlikely to be for them no matter how hard they work and their wage levels keep most luxury consumer goods beyond their means.

No matter what ails ya, heroin will make you feel better. – William Burroughs

Rape figures are always hellishly problematic to interpret because only a tiny proportion of rapes are ever reported so even minor policy or propaganda changes can have major impacts.

One phenomenon noted in Australia is that reported rapes jump steeply in areas where Women’s Refuges and Rape Crisis Centres are opened, but I don’t think anyone seriously believes such services cause rapes.

For a few years from the mid 90s there was a surge in reported rapes in Australia that came at a time the media were running a lot of stories on ‘rape drugs’ being slipped into people’s drinks (BTW, blood testing of victims reporting being drugged and raped showed pretty much zero sign of drugs other than alcohol). When the media lost interest in the story the rates of reported rapes quickly reverted to the mean. Since then I’ve seen different researchers using that spike to argue for or against all manner of reforms, choosing the start and end of their reporting period to suit their arguments. Few have mentioned the likely media effect on those figures.

There was no significant drop in reported rapes when sex work was decriminalised in NSW. Few researchers claim there was a notable change in the amount of sex work either.

But one thing I can tell you from several first hand accounts is that before decriminalisation a lot of inner Sydney sex workers were being raped by police. Needless to say they weren’t reporting it.

The reported drop in Rhode Island STDs is more intriguing though. In NSW the Scarlet Alliance and various sex worker outreach groups claim that decriminalisation has made it easier for sex workers to avoid practices that put them at high risk of STDs. I’m not aware of any research linking the incidence of STDs in the general population with the legal status of sex work though and considering the mobility of populations between states with different sex work legislation it would surprise me if there was a significant difference.

1. Women feel safer going into risky situations because there is this “safety net” of the Rape Crisis Center and are hence less careful. (This would stipulate that how careful a woman is has an influence on the risk of being raped. Alcohol consumption would be one mechanism were that would likely be the case.)

2. Some women use “rape” as a power play (I have read a figure of up to 50% of reported cases that are fishy stated by a prosecutor in Germany. As only real rapes can go unreported, this would _not_ mean 50% of rapes are fake, just of the reported ones.) Having a Rape Crises Center nearby may increase fake rapes in several ways, for example giving women the idea or higher convenience when executing it.

I am not saying that these are dominant effects, but it needs to be carefully ruled out. Just supports your point that these figures are really, really difficult to get right.

The RCC gives them somewhere to go for support after being raped and the other people there (usually women) encourage them to report it and support them in doing so.

Don’t forget, about 90% of rapes are committed by someone known to the victim. Prior to the RCC the main option would have been misogynistic cops who would have probably either made things a whole lot worse in their attempts to discourage registering an offence (very low conviction rate – it doesn’t look good in the clear up stats) or gone OTT on the alleged perpetrator without worrying too much about the possible consequences for the victim.

It’s common for rape victims to initially blame themselves – at least in part. RCC staff are trained to help them through that reaction and to overcome the sense of guilt that makes them vulnerable to police pressure.

Oh, sorry, I realise that you are suggesting they increase rape rather than reporting of rape.

Victim surveys don’t show the sort of RCC related jumps in rapes that police statistics do, though their sample sizes are usually such that there would have to be a big localised surge in rape for a statistically significant result to emerge. (BOCSAR does break victim surveys down by region but those regions don’t necessarily correspond to RCC catchment areas).

up to 50% of reported cases that are fishy stated by a prosecutor in Germany

I don’t know what the situation is in Germany but in Australia prosecutors would say that. They are under constant pressure to explain why the conviction rate for rape arrests is so low – even with the help of DNA evidence (the reason is because since DNA was introduced the vast majority of rape trials have been contested on the question of consent, which often just boils down to “he said, she said”. I don’t find that at all fishy but I can see why it doesn’t often meet the standard of proof ‘beyond reasonable doubt’).

There have been a few high-profile cases recently in Germany where people sent to prison for rape later turned out to be innocent and the accusing women turned out to be lying scum. (The women in question are going to prison, but that does not fix the error.) The problem was that the victims were believed despite better evidence or implausible stories. So Germany currently seems to have a climate where a prosecutor can be honest about this problem without getting killed by public opinion.

This is also not “beyond reasonable doubt”. That would be in court. This is 50% “too fishy to go to court in the first place”. In court it can still go either way. Typical situation seems to be child custody cases where many women suddenly discover being raped by their husband in the past and quite a few suddenly discover the husband has abused the children, with some working hard on the children to create false memories of abuse. Even worse than actual abuse, if you ask me.

This whole thing is incredibly messed up and unfortunately, women doing quite a bit of the messing.

I do not doubt that a few registered rape cases are bogus, but I don’t believe for an instant it is anything like 50% of them.

In NSW prosecutors drop about 40% of registered rape cases with an identified suspect, most of them on the grounds of ‘little prospect of a conviction’. That is not code for ‘we think the complainant is lying’. It is exactly what it says it is. As I mentioned before, when rapes are contested on the question of consent and there are no witnesses or evidence of injury there is ‘little prospect of a conviction’, even if the defendant has a long history of prior rapes (previous convictions can’t be used as evidence in Australian courts).

Child custody cases are not rape cases. I would agree that there is more incentive for one or both of the former partners to lie about abuse but it does not automatically follow that failure to previously report is ‘suddenly remembering’. I’m sure you can think of many perfectly valid reasons someone would not report their spouse for abuse when it happens but feel the need to raise the issue if there was a prospect of him or her gaining custody of the children without the other partner able to intervene to protect them.

A child custody case spawns a rape case in Germany if the woman claims to have been raped by her husband. The police has to investigate when they get to know about such an accusation, they have no choice. And of course, the women making these accusations know that.

Sorry, but I think you have your head in the sand. Wishing it were different does not make it so.

Maggie, you know I hate generalizations, because people spend more time find exceptions to the generalization–and basing their argument on that exception–than they do on looking at the statement and what is behind it.
However, you are correct: decriminalizing prostitution does–according to studies here and abroad going back to at leas the 1960’s–reduce the incidence of rape; something that tougher enforcement of the laws against rape and sexual assault fail at miserably.
The best way to prevent a crime is to stop it from occurring in the first place. Take away the cause, and you eliminate the effect. If there are women available to have sex with you at a reasonable rate, it should stop lots of rapes just because it is easier to go find a willing partner at the local bordello than it is to rape and harm some unwilling coed or co-worker. People are lazy when they are after their pleasures.
Why is that so hard to understand?

I wonder where they found sufficient examples in the 60s – never mind reliable rape figures – to show even statistical correlation, much less causation. My understanding is that Nevada has a reported rate of rape higher than the US average, but I’d certainly argue against those who claim it shows legalised prostitution causes rape. I also understand that European jurisdictions with legalised or decriminalised prostitution do not show lower rates of rape than their neighbours in which prostitution is still outlawed.

Perhaps you’d care to reference one or two such studies (other than the RI one under discussion that is).

Your view of the primary motives for rape would also seem to contradict those of most (though not all) researchers. In fact it would seem that only a small minority of rapists set out to commit rape at all. It is mostly an unplanned crime of opportunity that is closely tied up with negative attitudes towards the victims (either individually or generically).

Remembering this info from the book “Everything You Wanted to Know about Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), based on European studies–primarily Scandinavia and the Netherlands if memory serves–which is what convinced me of the need to legalize/decriminalize prostitution, on that basis, forty years ago. I was 16 or 17 at the time.

Then your lack of skepticism was understandable, as is your slightly dodgy memory of it.

What Reuben says is (pp 290-291):

Doesn’t prostitution increase sex crimes?

It doesn’t seem likely. In countries where the trade is legal, sex crimes are almost nonexistent. If a dollar or so buys a willing companion, raping a stranger doesn’t make sense. Peeping, exhibitionism, child molestation, incest, all feed on undischarged sexual tensions. In countries where prostitution is tolerated, these crimes hardly exist.

Of course he offers no references to back this surprising claim. It is, after all, just a 1960s pop sex manual. It’s full of a lot of other nonsense that few people would swallow today. Even Kinsey’s and Masters and Johnson’s work has since been shown to be full of errors and at least they took an empirical (rather than anecdotal) approach to their topic.

Yes, I do, from the information I came across when I wrote an article for OpEdNews in 2012 titled “http://www.opednews.com/articles/Making-Sex-a-Crime-by-Richard-Girard-120324-103.html,” but i cannot right now give you absolute empirical evidence; just belief.

I assume you mean that you still believe legalising prostitution reduces sex offending and not Reuben’s ridiculous claims that there is virtually no sex offending in jurisdictions in which prostitution is tolerated or that access to prostitutes is all that is needed to cure ‘child molesters’.

I have two main reasons to doubt your belief.

First is the thoroughly researched report of the NSW Parliamentary Working Group into the sex industry – the one that led to the decriminalisation of prostitution here. In all of it’s six hundred or so pages of arguments for and against legislative reform – which included extensive comparisons between jurisdictions all across the world – not once do they claim that legalising prostitution will, might or could lead to a reduction in sex offending. If there was evidence for it that would be a remarkable oversight on their part.

Nor do any of the groups I am familiar with in other Australian jurisdictions lobbying for reform of their own laws along NSW lines make that claim.

Second is the large amount of research I did into sex offending in the late 90s to mid 2000s.

Firstly as part of my criminology course, then to inform the work I did at Justice Action (which included supporting recently released sex offenders in matters such as their parole conditions, helping allegedly wrongfully convicted sex offenders prepare appeals, agitating for reform of the conditions under which sex offenders are imprisoned – particularly in regards to the onerous and counterproductive sex offender rehab courses they are expected to complete in order to gain parole, writing articles about sex offending for the JA magazine Framed, preparing submissions to NSW parliament against draconian sex offender laws, doing paralegal research for lawyers defending accused sex offenders and more), then when I was part of a disparate group of activists who set up a community based alternative to the criminal justice system for dealing with sex offences and finally for my five year series of guest lectures on sex offending which formed part of a gender studies course at the University of NSW.

In all of that time and in all of those pages of research not once did I come across evidence that legalising prostitution is linked to a reduction in sex offences. If there is such evidence that would have been more than passing strange as the reasons for sex offending, the motives of sex offenders and means of reducing sex offending are all fiercely contested issues among criminologists, penologists and those working in sex offender rehabilitation and such evidence would have provided powerful arguments for the minority who claim – as does Reuben – that sexual deprivation or frustration is a primary cause of sex offending.

It occurs to me that your memory might be letting you down in another way.

Since about the 1960s it has been known that liberalising access to pornography is associated with a drop in sex offending. When you control for offences related to voyeurism the association decreases but remains significant.

That evidence is used by those who claim that sex offending is driven by sexual frustration but there are also arguments against that interpretation. The legalisation of porn is also associated with more openness about sexual discussion in the community as a whole and greater access to sex education, either of which might cause a drop in sex offending.

Whorish Media

Maggie on Twitter

Boring but necessary legal stuff

All original content on this website (i.e. all of my columns, pages and anything else which I write myself) is protected under international copyright law as of the time it is posted; though you may link to it as you please or quote passages (as long as you attribute the quote to me), please do not reproduce whole columns without my express written permission. In other words, you have to say "pretty please with sugar on top" first, and then wait for me to say "okey-dokey".